Time to go and give former All-Star shortstop Leo Cardenas, aka "Mr. Automatic", a spot in my long-running "Nicknames of the 1970's" thread:
Somewhat of a forgotten man of the era,
Cardenas was a solid player for about a dozen seasons between 1962 and
1973, playing for the Cincinnati reds, Minnesota Twins and California
Angels, making five All-Star teams, collecting a Gold Glove in 1965 and
even getting some MVP attention in a few seasons.
Over his 16
year career, he would hit as many as 20 homers (1966), drive in as many
as 81 runs (1966), collect as many as 173 hits (1962) and even lead the
league two years in a row in intentional base on balls (1965, 1966).
By
the time he retired after the 1975 season after 55 games with the Texas
Rangers, he finished with 1725 hits, 662 runs scored, 689 runs batted
in and a .257 batting average over 1941 games.
